by Fuse
“Look, I’m being fully honest when I say that Sir Rimuru ordered me to avoid killing you as much as possible. Right now, I can promise you that I won’t hit anyone—in fact, I can even let you try some of my famous cuisine! A wonderful idea, wouldn’t you agree? This is your last warning. What’ll it be?”
Her proposal was far too haughtily given for anyone to accept. The Holy Field’s effects only accumulated over time as it purified the magicules caught inside. No magicules means no magic, no mystic arts, no divine force, no magical manipulation, and nothing that impacted the laws of nature. Only the special skills one may or may not have escaped its effects. To the paladins surrounding her, Shion’s bluster merely sounded like a barrage of poor excuses.
But it must be noted that the Holy Field was not a defensive barrier. It wholly shut off all magicule interaction but offered no resistance to objects or blunt physical energy. If you triggered an explosion inside the barrier, for example, it’d still send a shock wave and shrapnel outside of it. The paladins, fully aware of this, were approaching this battle in full armor for a reason.
“We in the paladin force,” Renard replied even as he failed to fully calm his anxiety, “do not negotiate with monsters. I see no need to discuss matters with you further!”
That was enough to push Shion’s patience over the cliff.
“Well said! Have it your way, then, and prepare to be subdued with a maximum of terror!”
Then she smashed her blade to the ground. The force of it ripped through the air, filling it with dust and rocks once more. She grabbed bunches of them at once, hurling a fistful at the knight in front of her.
“Ah…?!”
A single moment—and then a mighty roar, as a small explosion erupted in front of the paladin. The thrown rocks collided with the knight’s shield, pulverizing it into scrap metal. The force of it was astounding. This was her in a weakened state. If it wasn’t for the Holy Field, things would’ve been even worse.
“Don’t let up! Focus on your spiritual armor!”
“Yes,” Garde added, “keep it up! Consider this a demon lord we’re facing!”
The hapless, defenseless paladin hurriedly rebuilt a shield of light for himself, as Shion balled her fists and stared at them all. Undoubtedly, she meant that to finish him off, and seeing it fail enraged her all over again. The gap between that and her apparent intelligence and good looks was hard to swallow.
But at this point, even she had to realize this was going nowhere. Swallowing her anger, she spoke to Renard once more.
“I have an offer.”
“We do not negotiate with monsters. I just told you that.”
“Just listen to me. Like I said, I have orders not to kill you—but as part of that, I need to show you how much more powerful we are than you.”
“……”
“I tried to go easy on those stones I threw, but that’s far more difficult than it sounds. If I go any further with you, I think I might wind up killing one or two of you—”
“That’s a bluff!”
“Don’t listen to her! This is a monster tactic, meant to throw us into confusion!”
Shion smirked upon seeing the paladins’ instinctual response. “Ah, good, I’m glad you’re catching my drift here. So my offer…”
“Don’t let her deceive you,” Garde interrupted. “Let her sweet words enter your ears, and—”
Then, for just a moment, he felt something intensely hot around his right ear. Then came the impact, followed by the sound of the air being ripped apart behind it, rupturing his eardrum. Perhaps it was only his regular mental and physical training that saved him from a concussion.
“Wh-what was…?!”
Turning toward Garde, Renard was shocked to find a large tree behind him torn away from its roots, sending splinters flying as it tumbled to the ground. It made him forget how to speak for a moment.
“Ah…!”
Garde, blood dripping from his ear, realized what had just happened. Shion had tossed another stone—in essence, that’s all it was. But the fist-size stone she chose had brushed past Garde’s head at supersonic speed before smashing into (and through) the tree. She hadn’t missed her target, of course. That ear was her target, and she nailed it.
“Do you even need your ears, if you don’t bother using them? Now shut up and listen.”
The paladins did as they were told.
“You freak of nature…” Garde cursed her under his breath, but he couldn’t will himself to move. Even Renard realized by now that Shion had to be listened to. A direct hit by one of those could potentially kill one of his men. Not even spiritual armor was a bulwark against all physical force. With Shion’s full strength now demonstrated, they had to admit that this wasn’t a bluff at all—if she could fire bolts off faster than Garde the Battlesage could react, it was doubtful the rank and filers could fare much better.
Yes. Hear her out. The longer this dragged on, after all, the weaker she would become. Renard’s choice was clear.
“All right. Let’s hear your say.”
Shion gave him a satisfied nod, smiling defiantly. “Good. Listen to me. I want all of you to hit me with the most powerful attack you have. I promise you that I’ll take it squarely with my own body. If I stay standing, I win, and you submit to my forces. Sound good?”
Renard gave the utterly confident Shion a look of disbelief. Then a small doubt raised itself in his mind: …Does she really not want to kill us at all? Because that was exactly how Shion had been acting this whole time. What for, though…?
But Renard didn’t have time to think about it. Garde, half-deaf, was already pointing his rage at her.
“All right. We’ll take that offer. Men, sync up your spiritual force with me. Renard, you take control of it! That monster’s too dangerous to keep alive!”
Hearing his own name, Renard snapped out of it. “W-wait! We need to talk it over a—”
“Silence! Let’s do it!!”
The other paladins began to pool their forces together as instructed, a torrent of holy power right at the apex of the Holy Field. This was then reduced to pure magical energy, amplified by an injection of Garde’s own strength. Without Renard’s guiding hand, the force of these four paladins would fall out of control.
The midst of battle is no time to wallow in uncertainty. She deliberately requested this from us. She can’t complain about what comes of it.
If she wanted their full strength, he wanted to stake his pride as a paladin to provide it. Calling this a cowardly move—six fighters piling up against one—would be a cop-out. Against a monster, victory was the only thing that mattered.
“All right, Garde. I’ll guide it.”
“Right! Here we go! Infernal Flame!!”
With a spiritual force that blazed like a pyre from the underworld, Garde controlled the towering flames. This was an ultimate form of spiritual magic, borrowing the powers of an elemental lord for the job. It was more power than Garde could control by himself, and now it was all being slammed down into Shion’s body. It was even more powerful than Nuclear Cannon in terms of heat, a pure wave of destructive energy powered by the spiritual particles that formed magic itself.
As for Shion’s response:
“Hee-hee-hee! That certainly fit the bill! Not the attack I was expecting, but so be it. This ought to be the best way to strike fear into your hearts!”
She beamed with glee as she readied her enormous blade. The next moment, she mercilessly cut right through the Infernal Flame—a side effect of her Master Chef unique skill.
Although Shion’s behavior usually indicated no rational planning whatsoever, she had been utilizing multiple skills to produce this moment. First, she invoked the extra skill Multilayer Barrier to protect herself, keeping All-Seeing Eye and Magic Sense active to probe her opponents for weaknesses. Then, using Master Chef’s Optimal Action skill, she read the flow of those heat waves in a single, natural motion, cutting through them to avoid the direct a
ttack. That, of course, didn’t mean the attack failed to burn her skin off and put her in a terrible state. Ultraspeed Regeneration, however, made that no sweat for Shion. Her skin instantly began to fix itself up, returning to normal in the blink of an eye. As brash and reckless as her actions seemed, they were all based on sane, even laudable, logic.
“A promise is a promise. Surrender to my forces and release this barrier.”
Nobody found a ready response to Shion’s declaration. The paladins just nervously glanced at Renard and Garde. Seeing such unrealistic sights in rapid succession froze their brains. Their pride as paladins had just been crushed.
Only Garde remained unconvinced.
“Don’t trifle with us, monster. As long as that barrier remains in place, you are completely helpless! It peeves me to suggest this, but I’d say we should turn this into a battle of endurance!”
“G-Garde?!”
Renard was shocked. Garde was a man of reason, even if his anger sometimes got the best of him, but here he simply didn’t know when to quit. As a paladin, that was perhaps the right choice, but it didn’t seem at all like the Garde he knew.
But time had run out on that proposition. Shion’s aura surged, projecting danger across the woods.
“Ha! You still refuse to accept it? I really will need to kill you now…”
Renard shuddered. All—all that force…?! If this monster willed it, we would all be dead in an instant. Holy Field or not, we can’t anger her…
“We can’t anger her! Stop with the provocation! Put your weapons down and—”
“You fool! A paladin never accepts defeat! Have you forgotten that as well?!”
Garde promptly shot him down. This display from him was unimaginable. If anything, he seemed like a different person.
“Y-you…”
But before Renard’s confusion could fully transform itself into doubt, he was interrupted.
“Hngh!”
With that grunt of force—accompanied by a sharp kreeeeen echoing across the sky—Shion’s blade cut through the barrier. The Holy Field, the source of confidence for all paladins, was shattered.
“N-no…”
“That is a holy barrier!!”
“Is this…some kind of nightmare?!”
“How can a monster destroy a Holy Field?! It blocks all magicules!”
The paladins murmured among themselves, their words and faces full of gloom. Shion, on the other hand, treated all of this as the obvious result.
“…I knew it. It’s not a dense Multilayer Barrier at all; it’s just a Special Barrier modified to change the rules a little bit. Modifying the laws of nature like that happens to be a specialty of mine. I’m good at cooking that up, you could say!”
Renard had no idea what any of that meant, but there was no doubting what she just did. Using Master Chef, she had modified the results the Holy Field projected on the world. Rewriting the cookbooks, in a way, overwriting the barrier with something more to her liking.
That was the Guarantee Results skill, the most valuable tool in the Master Chef arsenal and the main reason why her food had gotten much better as of late. It was perhaps a waste of such a powerful skill to reserve it for the kitchen primarily, the way that she did—but now, in dramatic fashion, she had just showed off its battle applications.
The final results: four paladins, plus two officers, struck dumb with fear. What possible way was there to defend against an opponent who was free to get the results she wanted just by thinking about them? It was useless. The only way to counter that was to overwrite her will with an even bigger one—but that assumed you could mess around with the laws of nature in the first place. If you didn’t wield that kind of power, there was nothing to be done.
Renard, genius that he was, immediately realized what this meant. The fear was numbing to him. Just as Shion predicted, terror had overtaken his heart. But as the leader of this squad, he refused to give up hope. If fighting meant destruction, then best to surrender and find a way to stay alive.
“It can’t be… It’s ridiculous… How—how can this monster…?!”
As Garde babbled helplessly by his side, Renard made his decision, his voice wobbly, as if waking up from a dream.
“…We surrender. I only hope you will offer fair treatment to my forces.”
Finally, mercifully, Shion gave him a broad grin. For the first time, Renard looked right at her. That firm, guileless grin.
Then, mulling over his own words, he regained his calm and reflected on the day’s events.
It seemed certain that this monster Shion really wasn’t interested in killing them. That wasn’t Shion’s will, but that of her master, the demon lord Rimuru. This made the story of Rimuru ordering a demon to kill Archbishop Reyhiem seem a little unnatural to him. And come to think of it, the whole reason Hinata traveled here was in hopes of building a friendly relationship with Rimuru. Why would the demon lord himself seek to interfere with that? If he was trying to plunge the world into war and chaos, it would make sense—but looking at Shion here, Renard could tell that wasn’t the case.
Which meant:
Wait. Am I the one being used here…?
Hearing that the demon lord Valentine, the nemesis that snuffed out the lives of so many of his fellow classmates, was connected to Hinata had made him lose his critical thinking skills. Had that been used to trick him…? By who? The Seven Days Clergy, of course.
Reaching this point in his mind, Renard felt the blood drain from his head. Now, he realized, the force he captained was nothing but a hindrance to Hinata and her mission. Stealing a glance, he could see her facing off against Rimuru right now, and neither side seemed in the mood to talk. It was the calm before the storm.
This, this is… I am so sorry, Lady Hinata! Thanks to me, any attempt at negotiation was…
Now Renard knew the truth. But the truth arrived too late to do anything apart from watch the battle. There was no room for him to intervene.
And then the battle started, Hinata and Rimuru crossing swords before Renard’s eyes…
It was a stroke of luck that Hinata Sakaguchi ran into Shizue Izawa. Even if it was just for an instant—a mere month—she was the only person that Hinata ever truly opened up to.
In that short period, Hinata had learned all of Shizue’s sword skills, and when she was done, she left. Hinata was afraid of being rejected, and in the end, she was afraid she’d lose the warmth she had managed to gain this one time. She was fully aware of how awkward this was, and she did it anyway.
She had killed her father for the sake of her mother—but all it did was break her mother’s heart. Despite it all, she loved her husband. Perhaps her mother got into religion because she needed prayer in order to deal with it. But there was no eradicating unhappiness from the world. That was the natural, obvious truth. Trying to make it all go away would accomplish nothing.
Hinata didn’t want to admit that. She wailed at the unfairness of reality, dreaming of a world where everyone could live in peace.
What if her mother prayed to make up for her daughter’s crimes? If that was the case, did her mother really hate her? Just imagining it racked Hinata with fear. That’s why she saw coming to this world as such a fortunate thing. Her being here freed her mother from the pain, no doubt, and Hinata wouldn’t have to go crazy any longer. She could just go on and on, like a machine, and not worry about anything.
Such were the kinds of fantasies Hinata lived with.
That was why Hinata could never accept Shizue. If she did, and wound up hated for it, Hinata would likely make an attempt on her life. She knew that full well, and it drove her to leave before it happened. The only broken one here, she thought, is me.
The power she gained allowed her to live in a world full of despair, one where people could take other people’s lives all too easily. But in the midst of it, she came across a scene that proved a shock to her. One where a calamity-class monster attacked, killing many, while others fought to keep chil
dren safe. None of them fled, as they formed a human shield to protect them.
And here she thought the world was full of nothing but people who cared only to keep themselves alive. It left an impression on her.
In this world, those who fight were called paladins. Individuals who put their bodies on the line for other people, even it meant the ultimate sacrifice. People who patrolled the area around this city, shouldering the duty of protecting humankind.
That way of life resonated with Hinata. She decided to become a paladin herself, taking advantage of her own power. If she could devote herself fully to battle, there was no need to worry about anything else.
Thus, Hinata found a way to atone for her sins. And now, ten years later, Hinata was another protector of humankind.
The days were packed with monster combat. She couldn’t really say when these constant moments, the same thing happening over and over again, began to bore her.
Once she became captain of the Crusaders, the measures she enacted had reduced casualties down to astonishingly low levels. They could make accurate predictions of where monsters would appear, and how much damage they’d cause. They worked better as teams now, revising their patrols for optimum efficiency. Reworking the system had reduced the mayhem, producing results that were nothing short of impressive.
Hinata could point to that as the reason the knights trusted her so much. She had to laugh at the irony of her behind-the-scenes connection to the demon lord Valentine, but she could see that was the best, most rational way to keep the peace in this land.
She didn’t let it bother her. She had no regrets. Under the god Luminus, all were equal—and only in a fully managed world can people enjoy true happiness.
Now, though, the situation was poor. Laughably poor. But it had also led to a breakthrough.
There was no longer any room for negotiation. She had to win, or else she wouldn’t even have the chance to explain her actions. It didn’t seem like he was willing to listen to her, perhaps as payback for ignoring him so willfully last time.